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The present invention relates to an electronic scale system and method which is particularly suitable for mailing or shipping use.
In recent years, multifarious postage scales incorporating digital circuitry and microprocessors have been developed. These specialized postage scales are typically equipped with means of weighing packages including letters and parcels, and capable of combining the weight and the shipping rate information stored therein to determine the postage and other charges for shipment of the packages.
Many of the electronic scales are also equipped with means of displaying the weight of a package, along with the postage and other shipping charges during the weighing process. For aesthetic reasons, the display screens of such scales are compact and relatively small. As such, the amount of information displayed on one such screen is extremely limited.
The shipping cost for a package to be delivered to a destination is dependent upon not only the weight of the package, but also the particular carrier used, the destination zone, the class of shipment, and the selected service options. In the United States, carriers such as the United States Postal Service (USPS), United Parcel Service (UPS) and Federal Express each have independent, different postage rates and charges for different service options. For example, USPS has various rates for first, second and third mailing classes, parcel post service, priority mail service, book rate service, etc. UPS levies extra charges for service options such as Collect on Delivery (COD), Delivery Confirmation Response (DCR), Declared Value (DV) and the like.
Because of the existence of the many different carriers and their associated rates and charges, the amount of data to be stored in an electronic scale is substantial, and normally requires a dedicated memory in the form of a programmable read-only memory (PROM). However, whenever there is a change in the postage rates, or other cost factors, such memory needs to be replaced by an updated memory. The replacement undesirably calls for the service of a technician to disassemble the scale to physically remove the existing memory inside the scale.
Because of the many different rates and service options involved, the operating portion of an electronic postage scale normally includes many keys, each of which corresponds to a rate or a service option. The size of the operating portion is accordingly large and the presentation of the keys is confusing. The large keyboard would intimidate unskilled operators and leads to errors during a complicated operation. Attempts have been made to reduce the number of keys to simplify the operation. One such attempt involves use of special keys such as shift and/or control keys so that each key, coupled with the special keys, corresponds to two or more rates or service options. Nevertheless, such use of the special keys hardly reduces the complexity of the operation.
The present invention overcomes the prior art limitations by providing a plurality of soft selection keys having unfixed functions. These keys are used for selecting options including shipping service options, which are displayed on a screen on the inventive system. Each displayed option is associated with a different soft selection key, and is substantially aligned with the key associated therewith. One or more of the options can be selected by depressing the associated key or keys.
Thus, it is an object of the invention to provide a postage scale system and method which is easy to operate and perform so as to minimize confusion or misinterpretation by a system user.
It is a general object of the invention to provide a postage scale system and method for weighing packages and accurately determining their weight, the requisite postage and other shipping charges for various carriers.
Another object of the invention is to provide automatic display of information including the package weight and the cost of shipment on a screen which is easily adjustable for convenient viewing.
Still another object of the invention is to allow updating of the postage rates and other shipping charges without necessarily replacing the memory inside the scale system.
A further object of the invention is to allow a user to accurately track the shipping transactions, and to program the system to generate customized accounting records containing the shipping information.
Another object of the invention is to prevent or deter unauthorized copying of software provided for a postage scale system, and to easily enable selected system options using an authorization number.
It is also an object of the invention to provide interface capabilities for the system to communicate with other devices such as one or more printers, a postage meter, a remote computer, an optical scanner, an integrated circuit card, etc.